Monday, April 19th, 2010

Monday, April 19th, 2010

The game has changed, but most of the dead tree press and the BBC are still playing silly buggers despite the fact that on Thursday night Nick Clegg threw a six. Another YouGov poll has us is first place today. This is not an isolated blip any more. This is a sustained pattern. The Tory media outlets are shitting themselves.

The Tories are in meltdown, terrified that we might actually get STV in and they'll never see an outright majority again. Labour are boasting that even if they come third in the polls UNS still gives them the most seats like it's something to be proud of. Lots of media outlets are attacking us, and even the beeb is repeating the old vote Lib Dem, get Labour/Tories canard, even though the VoxPop on the Today programme is telling them that the electorate are seriously considering us.

How about this?

Vote Lib Dem, get Lib Dem.Vote for change, get change.Vote to totally shake up this country's cosy political system, get a new political system.

It's been a truism for years that if everyone who leaned Lib Dem actually voted Lib Dem then we'd win. This time it might actually happen. Nick Clegg's conference speech is starting to look less like mad posturing, and more like prescience. Imagine Vince Cable as chancellor. Imagine Lynne Featherstone doing Harriet Harman's job. Imagine David Laws in charge of education. Imagine a science department under Evan frigging Harris. Awesome, isn't it?

What is needed at this stage is not nuanced psephological arguments but a clear, disruptive, brutal message: vote Liberal Democrat and change the system.

When my computer starts doing odd things, I don't spend hours faffing about trying to debug the operating system. I hit the reset button. When my phone jams, I hit the reset button.

Courtesy of Nick Clegg's phenomenal performance this week, a vote for the Liberal Democrats has just become the equivalent of a bloody great big reset button. You can either press that button on 6 May or sit there in your respective comfort zones complaining about nobody has any real power to change things. It really is up to you now.

Take three minutes and fifteen seconds out of your life to watch this video (yes, Imogen, this means YOU):

It was made by a bunch of activists, unpaid and unprompted. As Alix Mortimer says, money CAN'T buy that kind of campaigning - which, to be frank, is good, because we really haven't got that much money. What we have got is the right policies, and the people who fully and wholeheartedly believe in them. We have hope, and we have good positive ideas, and we don't need to attack the other parties because we can stand on our own merits. I watched that video, and I felt proud and inspired and happy. The kind of feeling I haven't had since those Discovery Channel ads about how awesome the world is and how glad we should be to be part of it.

About This Blog

Hello! I'm Jennie (known to many as SB, due to my handle, or The Yorksher Gob because of my old blog's name). This blog is my public face; click here for a list of all the other places you can find me on t'interwebs.

Please note that any and all opinions expressed in this blog are subject to random change at whim my own, and not necessarily representative of my party, or any of the constituent parts thereof (except myself, obviously).